The Mystery Mineral
p. 37 · Read in the full issue
rtERE may be some who enjoy weed ing, -but their numbers must be very few. Every now and then, however, it becomes grimly necessary to try and clear away some of nature’s efforts to hide one’s garden soil.
At last the dismal labour had been done and from our verandah we looked down on a nice clean space, a sight that we had not revelled in for many a moon.
It was Hugo who first spotted what appeared to be a large brown stone with a smooth, shiny surface, somewhat caked with dry earth but managing to reflect the sun’s rays. He drew our attention to it and expressed the opinion that it was nrobably iron ore.
“Iron or what?” asked Enid.
“Iron or nothin*.” replied Hugo. “It’s iron ore.”
“Oh, that sort of ore,” said Enid.
Toby thought it was bauxite, about which all of us were a little vague, though Melville recalled how when the British blockade had prevented a neutral ship taking a cargo of bauxite to Germany, great had been the lamentation in the Reich. Others hazarded a guess that it was wolfram or pyrethrum.
Now, once an idea is planted in Toby’s head it expands in a big way, and his
thoughts gallop ahead. We gathered that we should immediately form a syndicate with Toby as chairman and commence minin" operations. But we had barely time to grasp this idea before Toby had led us on to visualise a vast mining camp with hundreds of happy natives enjoying high wages, ideal housin~ and regular picture shows. Then we were hustled into the Board Room, where Toby, as chair man, had announced a record dividend.
Camera-men swarmed round; Toby’s biography was featured in illustrated magazines: he was sent on trade missions 'to Moscow Rio de Janeiro and Teheran, and finally created a Viscount.
Then Melville said that it might be worth having a dekko at this wonderful stone.
He descended to the garden and held up for our inspection a portion of broken class from an ancient and, alas, empty brown bottle. —“HIEREUS.”
The Rt. Rev. W. H. Baddeley, Bishop of Melanesia, who has been in England, has left for his mission field, via the United States. He expects to be back in the Solomons before Easter.